


That would be enough

by Memento_vitae



Category: Beetlejuice (1988)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awkward Flirting, Awkward Tension, Divorce, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Romance, Slow Build, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-12 06:48:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19223836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Memento_vitae/pseuds/Memento_vitae
Summary: A nasty divorce and a custody battle later, Lydia's strained from the constant tugging and pulling of  life and decides to move back into her childhood home for some much needed peace and quiet. Hoping to find the friendly faces of Barbara and Adam Maitland, she instead comes face to face with 'the ghost with the most'.





	That would be enough

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [More_Than_Friendship_Trope](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/More_Than_Friendship_Trope) collection. 



> I want to thank TheArtOfSuicide for helping beta this! She really worked her magic on my writing. You should definitely check out her work.
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> (You can find her on Tumblr as xxx-theartofsuicide-xxx and me as helaquist) 
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> **Prompt:**
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> She was in a long term relationship or she was married and had kids- This prompt is where that happiness all ends and it's time to move on but with a broken heart and only her best friend there to nurse it, could she still have a chance at happiness?

 

 

   

"You use to live here, mom?"

 

Lydia peered up at the crooked old house she inhabited during her youth. It was dirtier now and needed lots of work done, the porch sinking and the paint peeling, the lawn overgrown in places and dying in others.

 

"Yeah, it used to look better, until grandpa moved back into the city," Lydia explained to her son. Perhaps it was that the sun was setting, casting wild shadows, and the windows needed a good dusting. Maybe it had been her hope of rediscovering the unknown and occult. But as she looked up at the house, her eyes caught the sight of a shadow at the attic window. Excitement bubbled up inside her, twisting in her stomach and pushing through her veins.

 

"It's really creepy, though. Do we have to stay the night? What if there's a serial killer hiding in the basement or a squatter in the closet?" Edgar Allen Ryder-Deetz had never really been the type of son a father could brag about. His imagination too wild and his thoughts too free to be captured into the snotty world of the upper class.

 

_''Well Steve, my son Carl Jr actually won a tennis championship last week.”_

_“Really, Carl? My son got a contract to play pro baseball this upcoming season.”_

_“-- and you James? How's little Edgar, what's he been up too?”_

_“He learned how to dissect a frog...all by himself.”_

 

Yes, it could be that he inherited all his mother's strangeness from inside the womb, and it didn't help that he looked like her too. Edgar could tell you one-hundred and one ways different cultures ate bugs, or why it was that humans couldn't be taxidermied. But at least it was useful information he knew by heart instead of acting like he knew how to play golf just to impress his father's buddies.  

 

"Edgar, there isn't a serial killer in the house, and you know we had to leave your dad's earlier than planned. But I did bring some blankets, sheets, and pillows, and if you're interested, " she shrugged nonchalantly "we could sleep in the living room and make a fort… maybe even order some pizza?" His face lit up.

 

"You promised, you better deliver!" Edgar exclaimed and reached into the trunk of their car where he pulled out his backpack and rushed towards the porch. "Last one there has to smell a stinky old sock!"

 

"Hey, no fair! I'm carrying a box!" Watching him jump onto the porch made her panic, seeing as rustled dangerously under his body’s weight. "Edgar be careful! The porch could break and it goes straight down the basement, buddy. Try not to break your neck." She opted to skirt around the broken area instead.  

 

It was grimy inside, layers of dust denoting years of neglect. After graduating, Charles Deetz, worried for his only daughter, canceled his early retirement to follow her right into the heart of New York City. After finishing University, nobody thought to remember to pay their old white home a visit. Lydia had grown, gotten hitched and pregnant and the last thing on her mind was a haunted house on a hill.

 

"It smells nasty in here, mom." Edgar pinched his nose and made a face at the sour smell of rotten wood.

 

"Agreed, kind of smells like you!" She teased but in reality, confusion settled in on why the Maitlands hadn't kept the place up to shape. It was technically their house after all. "Here, why don't you dust the living room carpet while I order some pizza." He had opened his mouth to complain at the idea of doing chores this late but settled when his mom mentioned their dinner.

Exploring further, Lydia took out her phone. "You get better reception upstairs, I'll make the call and come back down soon, sweety." Ignored by her son, she wished to rush up the stairs but fear of the steps caving in on her trumped her hurry. Slowly making her way toward the attic did bring up some good memories-- except grabbing the banister. After B-word’s little stunt, that had her hesitating.

 

A smile came across her face. It had been fifteen years since last she saw Barbara and Adam. They weren’t able to go to her graduation ceremony due to “territory issues” but certainly celebrated enthusiastically at the after party. It was odd to think she was now older than them. Adam was twenty-eight when he died, and Barbara twenty-nine. After climbing up the short set of stairs and onto the platform, she gave a solid knock on the door.

 

"Barbara, Adam? It's me Lydia, I'm back!" She waited, awkwardly clicking her nails on the back of her phone. "Are you guys there?" No response "Okay, I'm just coming in, alright?" She gave a hard twist to the squeaky doorknob and pushed forward. The sight that met her was not anything she was expecting.

 

The last time Lydia had been upstairs in the Maitlands’ attic was the day she moved states. Back then, soft glowing fairy lights hung on the walls, with a knitted throw blanket across the bulky couch. The replica of the town was proudly presented right in the middle of the room

Now it was nowhere in sight, the couch looked like it was about to fall apart at any second, the lights disappeared from the walls and was replaced by a splattering of a kaleidoscope of colors.

"Mi casa es tu casa, that's German for my house is yer house." Lydia felt her body freeze up, the grip she had on her phone could have bruised skin it was so tight. Clenching her teeth in trying not to let out a horrified scream, her eyes quickly zeroed in on him. Not much had changed about him, which was unsurprising considering he was a ghost. Her flight instincts quickly flew away into what became fight.

 

"Get away from me you fucking snake!" Immediately on the offensive, she grabbed the nearest object, which happened to be a half deconstructed clock, and flung it at him with all the force she could muster up.

“Hey-- babes, calm down.” The clock flew right through his glowing body to crash into the wall behind him. A sickly bright green glow was emitting from him. “Yer th'one in ma house!” Beetlejuice’s words seem to fly right over Lydia’s head as she jabbed a wooden stool she picked up at him. Slowly she made her way backward, far away from him as she physically could.

 

“What did you do to the Maitlands? Exorcise them?” She kept scooting further away, her mind running through every horrible scenario it could in that short span of seconds, her attention away from the fact that she was dangerously close to the stairwell. At that very moment, she felt her body go light, Lydia’s heart fluttered for a second before smashing into her chest, then the sensation of rapidly plummeting down the stairs that led to the attic came to her.

   

“Watch it, babes. I don’t wanna another ghost in ma territory. Well, actually I would'n mind if it was ya.”

 

This time, Beetlejuice had fully formed and was holding onto Lydia’s arm. As he returned her onto the landing, Lydia backed up again and shook Beetlejuice's hand from her arm.

 

"I don't know what your game is, and I don't know what you've done to the Maitlands but I will find out." A furious glare punctuated her accusatory half-threat. "And if you come anywhere near MY son, I will personally exorcise you. And that's a promise." With the turn of her heels, Lydia stomped down the attic stairs, slamming the door before she left. Still, a nudging little fear at the back of her mind prompted her to look back as she descended the stairs.

 

"Wow mom, that pizza place must have really riled you up. You were practically yelling at them." Lydia came back to earth once she heard Edgar speak. Panic slowly receding, she stood on the landing and watched him violently sweep the rug. Though he had recently turned nine last August, he still maintained his baby cheeks, thankfully no sign of impending puberty. She just couldn’t look at her baby without feeling the flutter of pride in her chest, a feeling she didn’t ever imagine herself feeling.

 

“Yeah, they hung up on me, I’ll just go outside and call them from there. Hopefully, they’ll actually take my order this time.” Making her way out front, Lydia stopped in her tracks and turned to address Edgar.

 

“Edgar, it’s really important that you don’t go up to the attic. The floor is sinking upstairs,” she lied.

 

“Hey mom,” Lydia watched as her son swept the broom back and forth. ”Do you think ghosts are real?”

 

“Why do you ask that?” Her mind began to turn. What if Beetlejuice decided to do something to Edgar? What if he hurt him?.

 

“Well, do you think if dad died, he would haunt us? Like... he would live with us again.” Edgar stopped sweeping, watching her with his curious little face. His voice had turned more serious Well, as serious as he could manage with his squeaky voice.

 

“um-I, I guess, but Edgar you have to understand. When a person leaves for certain reasons, sometimes they never come back. Not dead or alive sweety.” She walked towards him and placed a hand on his shaggy red hair. “But don’t worry about that, you have me. We have each other.” Edgar paused for a moment, taking in his mother's words before bringing to speak again.

 

"Alright then…well, call the pizza place mom, I'm starving." He whined.

"I'm getting there kid, why don't you bring the chairs and dust them and before the pizza comes we take in the rest of the boxes. I'll help you but let me call the pizza place first."

 

       The floor wasn’t as intolerable as she would imagine it to be, on the other hand, sleeping next to a nine-year-old snorer was a much more difficult task. Sleeping wasn’t something that could come easy to her. It never really was, even when she was a child. The existential dread always seemed to set into her chest during deep dark nights.

 

However, sleeping inside the same house that your worst nightmare currently inhabited-- that set a different fear into her body. It numbed her brain and churned her stomach, breathing becoming increasingly labored at the thought of what he could do, what he can do. What if she couldn’t rid of him or he decided to take extreme action on her trespassing?

 

Another pressing matter was the curious case of the Maitlands. Where had they disappeared to? They wouldn’t just up and leave their house, especially when it meant leaving it to a creep like Beetlejuice. Yet, it appeared that they had and this was the most distressing part. She needed to find a way to communicate with them. At a young age, she had never actually realized she could see the dead until she met the Maitlands. After that, her senses of the beyond became hypersensitive. She could feel them, see them clearer and even smell the dead, which was the worst part. Though seeing and contacting were completely different things. She could try herself but that would be difficult and would take longer to accomplish. Convincing someone to talk to the dead would be a relatively easy task if you knew were to ask, but finding the real deal was were the challenge laid.

  

If things got any more difficult here with Beetlejuice, Lydia didn't quite know what she would do. Her pride had taken a toll when she asked her father to stay at their old home, so requesting further help was not an option. These past years she had relied far too much on others; first, her father who was adamant on helping the daughter he once ignored, then her ex-husband James who had handed her everything yet controlled it all. Leaving them behind was a reality check. especially James. she had been shaken to the core by his actions, fear gripping her heart. Now it was time to do what needed to be done all along. She had to take charge of her life, like Delia had advised all those years ago. She couldn't be scared anymore. Beetlejuice would be her start.

  
  



End file.
